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Wonderful topic! On the whole, I'm with McNulty, though there are exception of course on both sides. I was struck by this:

Theatrical training is the standard answer for what distinguishes our acting cousins from across the pond. And it's hard not to marvel at the virtuosic command of speech; the way Dench, Mirren and O'Toole make music out of spoken thought. Steeped in Shakespeare and a culture committed to live performance, they have by necessity developed their physical instruments and, in particular, that region of the body that lies between the back of the throat and the tip of the tongue.
This may not be a particularly original point, but its validity was brought home to me recently when I saw a newish British filming of "Merchant of Venice". Among the smaller roles (friends of Bassanio, I think) I recognized McKenzie Crook, the smarmy toady Gareth from the British version of "The Office"(so different from and , to my mind, superior to the American imitation), and also Kris Marshall, the manic slacker son in the British sitcom "The Family" and susequently one of the leads in a detective series currently on BBC America.

I admit that this was not acting in the league of Dench or Mirren, but both young men are character actors with theatrical experience. Neither is physically handsome. Both can handle comedy, pathos, a certain amount of menace --- in other words, they have range in a variety of light and serious work. And they are just two picked out of many among young actors doing fine work in a number of genres in Britain today.

In the US, would their acting opportunities be so broad? Or might they not have been type-cast from day one?

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I don't think it means much beyond just this year's Oscars. Obviously, Shakespeare (and of course more provincial British things like Lonsdale, to take an extreme example) is best if as British as possible, but as a general subject, I don't see a thing in its favour--it's just a feature. Just add 'French actors' to the matter and you have, at least for me, actors who are currently in film today that are a lot more interesting than British ones. They can all do things the others can't, aren't put together for. And who is nominated for the Oscars is not necessarily a reliable guide to who might or might not have done the best work. Also, compare these Oscar nominees to last year's and the year before, and there may be no story. It has to be a smaller domain to make sense to compare. I can see comparing Shakespearean stage actors with the English coming out ahead of anyone else. Comedie Francaise actors are always going to be better at Racine. There are still more great Russian Auroras and Odettes to date than there are American ones. Taken as a whole over the history of cinema, there are likely more great American film actors, because the medium is far more quintessentially American than it is any other nationality, and also the most quintessentially American artistic medium. The article is about Dench, Mirren and O'Toole.

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Thank you, Mashinka, for the link and raising an interesting topic. I must be brief right now, but a couple of thoughts. It is indeed a discussion of potential interest, but I’m afraid for me McNulty doesn’t go far beyond the superficial – as papeetepatrick says, the piece itself doesn’t have much application beyond this year’s Oscars, in relation to which McNulty fails to mention The Departed, a movie that shows a master actor, Jack Nicholson, in an erratic performance that nonetheless shows some of the best aspects of American style performing, leading a remarkable cast of younger men. Maybe they can’t take tea with Helen Mirren, but they have an intensity and directness often lacking in British actors. McNulty suggests that acting in independent film makes some of the difference, but until Titanic put him over the top DiCaprio cut his teeth and made his reputation in those same indie pictures. Again, there is certainly more to discuss, but I fear this piece was mainly ginned up for Oscar time.

I will say that British actors tend to make better acceptance speeches - they always show up with something elegant, well prepared, and to the point, unless it's Sacha Baron Cohen talking about the scent of his co-star's naughty bits.

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Although Peter O'Toole was raised mostly in England, he was born in Galway, which is part of the Republic of Ireland. Therefore he is Irish not British. A common and iirritating error.

Unless I read the article too quickly, I noticed no mention of Forest Whitaker, a subtle, insightful and often brilliant actor. He studied music and apparently wanted to become an opera singer. Opera's loss is cinema's gain.

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Although Peter O'Toole was raised mostly in England, he was born in Galway, which is part of the Republic of Ireland. Therefore he is Irish not British. A common and iirritating error.

Unless I read the article too quickly, I noticed no mention of Forest Whitaker, a subtle, insightful and often brilliant actor. He studied music and apparently wanted to become an opera singer. Opera's loss is cinema's gain.

Quite right, zerbinetta, but in McNulty’s defense I think he is referring not so much to place of birth as training, style, and theatrical heritage. O’Toole studied at RADA and may very well have been born in Leeds, and where British theatre would be without Shaw, Sheridan, Congreve (born in Leeds but educated in Ireland), and Wilde is not a good place to contemplate. (Okay, Shakespeare wasn’t Irish, although if evidence were suddenly to turn up to that effect I’d not be stunned. :) )

The article does mention Whitaker, I'm pretty sure.

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Well, I understand McNulty's feelings. There is a lot of pleasure to be had from the kind of acting that emphasizes voice. I do miss the theatrical way of speaking that some American movie actors used to cultivate (happily, I still hear it on New York stages), but it really would be out of place in most American movies, which started out as a purely visual art form and continue to be as much visual as vocal. I think Hollywood also discovered early on the mysteriously compelling power of star quality, which often doesn't have anything to do with either voice or looks.

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Judi Dench, Helen Mirren and Peter O’Toole are all over sixty and therein lies a serious problem, add to their names actors such as Alan Howard, Derek Jacobi, Ian Mckellen and a couple of others and you have the cream of the British acting profession. Trawl around for actors of genius under sixty and the only one you will net is Simon Russell Beale. My favourite American actor? Jack Nicholson: and he’s over sixty too.

English character actors of course get a good deal whatever they do, frequently having faces like the rear end of a horse, Hollywood can’t get enough of our uglies to fill the casting gaps created by image conscious Americans that crowd out the plastic surgeons waiting rooms for every tiny imperfection. And what American blockbuster these days doesn’t boast an English villain? Steven Berkoff in particular must be raking it in.

French actors are probably the worlds finest, though audiences here, and I suspect in America too, are often resistant to foreign language films, but there is a never-ending stream of talent in French cinema that I don’t pick up on from either America or the UK.

Obviously the article is a tie in to the Oscars, but the UK BAFTA awards have already happened and although British and American taste can be oceans apart, I’ll be very surprised if America doesn’t follow the UK in awarding best actor to Forest Whitaker.

Check the BAFTA nominees against those of the Oscars:

http://www.bafta.org/site/page287.html

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There have been several references to French actors. I also am a big admirer of French films. But, is it possible really to appreciate fully (much less evaluate) an actor unless you are fluent in his or her language? So much can be lost if you cannot grasp tone, accent, pacing, and other aspects of language use. Perhaps only the silent movies were a truly universal platform for actors.

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bart, to generalise with respect to French actors, I think one of their greatest characteristics is the ability to convey passionate emotions in a very understated (and chic :) ) way.

I wonder whether this characteristic is a product of the French acting training or of the cinematic style itself.

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There have been several references to French actors. I also am a big admirer of French films. But, is it possible really to appreciate fully (much less evaluate) an actor unless you are fluent in his or her language? So much can be lost if you cannot grasp tone, accent, pacing, and other aspects of language use. Perhaps only the silent movies were a truly universal platform for actors.

I think it is, even if not as much as the native-born Frenchman. Such standards would be very limiting to appreciation of art. I know French fairly well, but if you watch a favourite actor like Huppert or Deneuve or Daniel Auteuil a great deal, you enter into their rhythms, tone, accent and other aspects of language in the same way as a non-dancer who doesn't know the grammar of ballet can appreciate Balanchine with enough exposure. Acting is not all language anyway; and in that case, although I would not be qualified to do something professional in terms of being a French or German movie critic, an American cannot necessarily grasp what a British actor is doing nearly as well as someone English. British English is not the same as American English. Britons and Americans often feel quite qualified to judge each other even if they're not as astute as they might be. Of course, what you may be referring to is Racine in particular, which is generally thought to be not fully appreciable except in French--but even this is relative. I have often read French works in English first so it wouldn't be so arduous, and then gone back to read them in French when I already knew what the text was essentially--in this way you get the flavour. But that's still not the best example. The best is the non-dancer or the non-musician who can never understand certain aspects of the work, but nevertheless can be some of the most truly devoted protectors and lovers of these works by their individual probing.

Of course, there are nuances I may miss in a Huppert performance, but then I might miss it in a Mirren performance. I'd just rather see Huppert and therefore do follow her work and not Mirren's. It's also true that someone who is focussing on an actor in his/her native language may not know all that much about acting itself, so even if he appreciates nuances of language, another film actor who doesn't even know the language may pick up things he cannot--the whole grammar of acting, which the non-actor can only know second-hand.

I wouldn't quite term the best French acting 'chic' (although the worst sometimes comes under at least that category perhaps more than others due to stereotyping), but I'd agree with 'understated.'

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Mashinka writes:

Judi Dench, Helen Mirren and Peter O’Toole are all over sixty and therein lies a serious problem, add to their names actors such as Alan Howard, Derek Jacobi, Ian Mckellen and a couple of others and you have the cream of the British acting profession.

A good point. I recall Christopher Plummer saying awhile back that the training he received wasn’t available today.

English character actors of course get a good deal whatever they do, frequently having faces like the rear end of a horse, Hollywood can’t get enough of our uglies to fill the casting gaps created by image conscious Americans that crowd out the plastic surgeons waiting rooms for every tiny imperfection. And what American blockbuster these days doesn’t boast an English villain? Steven Berkoff in particular must be raking it in.

Don’t forget Ray Winstone, who scares me witless.

Anthony_NYC writes:

Well, I understand McNulty's feelings. There is a lot of pleasure to be had from the kind of acting that emphasizes voice. I do miss the theatrical way of speaking that some American movie actors used to cultivate (happily, I still hear it on New York stages), but it really would be out of place in most American movies, which started out as a purely visual art form and continue to be as much visual as vocal.

Technology has changed, too. Actors used to have to speak louder and clearer to ensure the mike picked them up. I’m of two minds. I certainly don’t miss Joan Crawford saying ‘cahn’t’ for ‘can’t’ but I did wince every time John Malkovich tried to get his tongue around words like ‘mademoiselle’ in Dangerous Liaisons – he sounded more Shepard than Laclos.

papeetepatrick writes:

I wouldn't quite term the best French acting 'chic' (although the worst sometimes comes under at least that category perhaps more than others due to stereotyping), but I'd agree with 'understated.'

Perhaps ‘sophistication’ in the highest sense. I think of Les Enfants du Paradis, where the acting is heightened in a theatrical way but not mannered or artificial – nobody is playing an ‘ordinary’ person or trying to, yet the emotions are very real.

Acting is not all language anyway;

A Brando story. A member of the National Theater of the Deaf told Patricia Bosworth, a biographer of Brando, that he was tops with them because ''even though we can't hear what he's saying, we know exactly what he means.” (I could have that quote wrong – from memory.)

Of course, there are nuances I may miss in a Huppert performance

I just saw her in The Piano Teacher again. You can see it over and over and still catch something new. What a performance.

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papeetepatrick writes:

QUOTE

I wouldn't quite term the best French acting 'chic' (although the worst sometimes comes under at least that category perhaps more than others due to stereotyping), but I'd agree with 'understated.'

Perhaps ‘sophistication’ in the highest sense. I think of Les Enfants du Paradis, where the acting is heightened in a theatrical way but not mannered or artificial – nobody is playing an ‘ordinary’ person or trying to, yet the emotions are very real.

Yes, that's what I meant. Thanks for saying it better - and less facetiously - than I did.

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I am still hung up about the issue of how language is presented, and what it tells us about character.

I recall -- though not (unfortunately) in detail -- a French movie of the 60s in which I completely misunderstood a female character and her place in the story because I could not pick up inflections and word usage that clearly identified her (to a Francophone) as to social class, region, and even a certain comic pretentiousness by which she tried to disguise her origins.

I saw a wonderful movie. French-speakers heard a story that was quite different from mine.

British class differences and regionalism are, in comparison, rather easy to pick up for an American ... if you see, and read about, a lot of British film and tv.

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I saw a wonderful movie. French-speakers heard a story that was quite different from mine.

But it's possible to approach this very closely by doing what I mentioned above--reading in English and then in French if it's a book--and also by watching a French film several or many times. In 2000 or so, I recall watching 'Ma Nuit Chez Maud' making sure I read all the subtitles to make sure I fully understood everything. Then I turned the television around and just listened to the entire movie, and my partial-French was adequate enough to then hear it all in French, because I already knew what the sense was. I could have done this in a cruder way with German and Italian, it's just according to if and when you can take the time to do it. If you know 'Phedre' very well and then see it at the Comedie Francaise, you can also know it to a great degree in French--but it's very possible to 'do a movie' at home like I described with 'Ma Nuit Chez Maud' and then begin to hear it as well as experience it on other levels. I highly recommend it, including to myself, because I haven't thought to do it for awhile.

Edited to add: Also a few years back I came across a VHS of 'Two Women' which had no subtitles. While I don't know Italian, it was very interesting how much I felt I did understand, and this was by no means an exact kind of procedure I did with 'Ma Nuit...' I never did this before or since, but I was very surprised at how you can experience the language in an aural and musical sense, even though you don't know the grammar or most of the words--period.

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Watching a movie at home, often more than once, is becoming increasingly common, but if you’re in a theatre coming to the work for the first time you can’t really do that - not that I think you must do that in order to appreciate a picture in a foreign language. And not too long ago the only way to see a picture like ‘Maud’ was to travel, sometimes a considerable distance if you were not a city dweller, to an art house and it could be years before you saw it again. (And it’s not always desirable; I’m glad I saw ‘The Lives of Others’ in a theatre. And there are some films for which one viewing is quite enough, thank you.)

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A long piece in TheGuardian regarding looming cuts in the arts budget.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/st...2020381,00.html

Dear Helen. Dear Judi. Dear Peter. Tomorrow night, if you get your Oscars, would you please make a point of thanking not just your mums and your directors in your acceptance speech but also us, the British taxpayers and our government?

You are what you are principally because of your wonderful talents. But you are also where you are because of the subsidised theatre. All of you have reached the eminence you now enjoy in part because you were given a start and learned your art in theatres that prosper only because of government support.

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I just remembered there is an excellent example of the conflicting styles of American and English acting techniques in Mailer's 'Marilyn'. In 'The Prince and the Showgirl' section, it is all laid out and detailed beautifully by Mailer. Years afterward, if I recall correctly, Olivier, not having been so impressed at the time, is full of praise for Marilyn's presence in the film.

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I just remembered there is an excellent example of the conflicting styles of American and English acting techniques in Mailer's 'Marilyn'. In 'The Prince and the Showgirl' section, it is all laid out and detailed beautifully by Mailer.

One of the best things in Mailer's book, absolutely.

Monroe received a very gracious compliment from Sibyl Thorndike, who also appeared in the movie. I can’t recall offhand but I think Mailer quotes it. Thorndike said that when she played her scene with Marilyn she couldn’t figure out what Marilyn was doing, indeed she hardly seemed to be doing anything at all. It wasn’t until Thorndike saw the onscreen result that she understood; she said Monroe was the only one of them who knew how to act in front of the camera. Even allowing for the necessity to praise the star/producer, it’s a fine compliment.

Years afterward, if I recall correctly, Olivier, not having been so impressed at the time, is full of praise for Marilyn's presence in the film.

I don’t think Olivier came around to quite that extent – the making of the film was a very bad experience, although not all Monroe’s fault to be sure (as I think Mailer points out, Olivier never should have been made the director) – but he did say in his autobiography that when he saw the picture again years later it looked far better than he expected and Marilyn better than anybody else, including himself. (He didn’t add, “Go figure” but it was implied. :clapping: )

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Good or bad, the Brits didn't do too well in the final analysis.

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol...icle1442389.ece

Well, Christopher shouldn’t have been quite so stunned. Most of the British nominees in question were outside chances at best. (You could tell by Peter O’Toole’s expression when the cameras closed in for the customary sadistic closeups of the losers, however, that a) he thought he was going to win and b) that he wanted it really, really bad – the last nominee I can recall looking that crushed was Michael Caine when he didn’t win for ‘The Quiet American.’)

There was a lot of talk this year at the ceremony about how ‘internationalized’ the awards were and how great this was. I didn’t think so – the Oscars are American, after all, which doesn’t mean raving chauvinism or barring the door to keep the furriners out but the awards should, ideally, provide a showcase for what’s good in U.S. filmmaking as BAFTA does for the British. I thought the talk of internationalization was a tacit acknowledgment that Hollywood is failing in certain departments, and it was certainly noteworthy that many of the best pictures of the year all seemed to be huddled together in the Foreign Language category. (For the record, I was pleased that ‘The Departed’ won.)

Helen Mirren wobbled her way to a fairly predictable but nerve-racking Best Actress award.

Under normal circumstances I would have been happy to see Mirren win but I was so sick of hearing about Helen, ‘The Queen,’ the Queen, and how great they all were that I was hoping for Penelope Cruz or Meryl Streep to stage an upset. I thought Mirren’s speech was fine and her dress was nice, although I still don’t understand the purse thing.

The Brit I do think should have been higher profile who wasn’t was Sacha Baron Cohen. I understand he was willing to be a presenter if he could be in character and the Academy chickened out. Their loss, and the audience’s.

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Under normal circumstances I would have been happy to see Mirren win but I was so sick of hearing about Helen, ‘The Queen,’ the Queen, and how great they all were that I was hoping for Penelope Cruz or Meryl Streep to stage an upset. I thought Mirren’s speech was fine and her dress was nice, although I still don’t understand the purse thing.

I didn't care if she won, because I didn't watch it and ceased caring long ago, but I too was tired of harassment. At least you saw it. I had to fight off 2 friends treating me like I was a cretin for not seeing it and I'm still annoyed. I didn't even give it any thought, because I like to see footage of the real queen and find her funny. Therefore, I don't believe Helen Mirren was all that good as the Queen no matter how good she was. Both of these obnoxious friends who bugged me hate the real Queen.

I'd be much more interested in a short about the 1982 minutes in Buckingham Palace when 'Elizabeth Windsor', as Mirren, being the good sport for America, referred to her, had that little London Club Scene moment with the trespasser who described her as 'a young girl in her curlers'. She 'doesn't smoke', and can't reach her buzzer, but will 'see if I can get one...' [a cigarette]. This was only a year after the Royal Wedding, so she had actually, as being the object of desire by an ex-junkie who had previously gotten into the palace and stolen a bottle of her wine, upstaged her glittering daughter-in-law. The short could be made reasonably lengthy by long tunnel scenes in search of the wine, and research could be done on what the legitimate employees were doing during the various movements toward the high crime, perhaps even a musical number since the royal servants are very obedient, as one observed on the recent PBS thing about Windsor. Even so, the thought of the actual event is more interesting than seeing someone who is merely a great actress play at it.

This was hilarious, though, from Christopher: 'Helen Mirren — working the sexy Miss Havisham look. Let the woman wear a tracksuit, now'--worth the whole article...

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The Brit I do think should have been higher profile who wasn’t was Sacha Baron Cohen. I understand he was willing to be a presenter if he could be in character and the Academy chickened out. Their loss, and the audience’s.

If Baron Cohen as Borat had done the presenting, even I would have watched!

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